중앙데일리

Bareunmirae Party gets behind summit deal

Sept 07,2018

The floor leader of South Korea’s third-largest party proposed adopting a resolution on Thursday to support an inter-Korean agreement prior to its ratification.

In a speech before the National Assembly, Kim Kwan-young of the Bareunmirae Party called for bipartisan cooperation in ratifying the Panmunjom Declaration signed by South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their first summit in April.

He proposed adopting a resolution as a realistic first step amid a deadlock in denuclearization talks between the United States and North Korea.

“The Bareunmirae Party will adopt an active attitude toward President Moon Jae-in and the ruling party’s request for parliamentary ratification of the summit agreement and their hope to show the world South Korea’s strong will to denuclearize North Korea,” Kim Kwan-young said.

“But there is also the need to take into account some opposition parties’ concerns that the ratification could drive a wedge in the Seoul-Washington alliance,” he warned.

On Wednesday, Moon sent a special envoy to North Korea to fine-tune details of a third summit with Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang and advance stalled negotiations on the North’s nuclear arsenal.

Moon Hee-sang, the National Assembly speaker, had proposed ratifying the Panmunjom Declaration before the president’s trip to Pyongyang as a gesture of good will. Lawmakers had failed to adopt a resolution in May because they differed on the wording with respect to North Korea’s denuclearization.

As the floor leader of a minority party, Kim also called on the National Assembly to reform the electoral system this year and adopt a mixed-member proportional representation system that would give more seats to smaller parties. Under such a system, the number of seats that each party receives in the legislature is tied to the percentage of votes that it gets.

“Within this year, we need to introduce the mixed-member proportional representation system to better reflect voter sentiment,” Kim said, adding that the legislature should also introduce a system that allows people to dismiss lawmakers through a referendum when they are deemed unfit for the job.